1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of information handling systems, and more specifically, to managing redundant memory within information handling systems.
2. Background Information
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is an information handling system (IHS). An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for such systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
In an IHS, an uncorrectable or unrecoverable hardware error may adversely affect the operating system (OS) such as rendering it inoperative or unreponsive. For instance, internal chipset errors and corruption in the system memory may cause machine check exceptions or non-maskable interrupts (NMIs). In an IHS utilizing a Windows OS, NMIs may result in a bug check (e.g., BSOD or blue screen of death). In instances where IHSs employ virtualization, uncorrectable errors may create additional problems. For example, in a server environment implementing virtualization, a physical server may utilize virtualization software, such as a suitable OS, a hypervisor, a virtual machine monitor, a parent partition or any other program capable of virtualization. Virtualization software may enable several virtual machines (VMs), each simulating an IHS, to run on a single physical server or machine. Thus, if an uncorrectable error occurs in the server, it may cause all of the VMs running on the server to crash, thereby greatly reducing the benefits of VMs.
In order to prevent machine check exceptions or NMIs from occurring, some IHSs employ redundant memory techniques to enable recovery from uncorrectable memory errors. Such techniques may include but are not limited to spare memory row, memory mirroring, and memory redundant array of independent DIMMs (memory RAID). However, these forms of memory redundancy may require the mirroring of or redundancy for the entire system memory, thereby possibly significantly reducing the usable system memory. In some cases, current forms of memory redundancy may truncate the amount of usable system memory in half. Furthermore, since memory may prove to be an expensive component with a low failure-rate relative to other components in an IHS, currently employed memory redundancy techniques may not be considered cost-efficient.
Thus, a need exists for systems, methods, and media for providing redundant memory for a portion of system memory.